About Me

Monday, January 17, 2011

The various anti-smoke belching campaign by the MMDA and local governments is a good move if done without exception. Meaning all vehicles -- public and private, old and new vehicles, should be covered. They should not selectively choose and flag down old vehicles (like mine) while letting go and not disturbing newer vehicles or government vehicles.

Last week, Makati city government's anti-smoke belching unit (ASBU) flagged me down while I was driving my daughter from her school, at Metropolitan ave. near the Ospital ng Makati (OsMak) emergency unit. I stopped and asked them why. They asked, "taga Media kayo?" because they saw the sticker of "People's Brigada News" in my front glass. I said "Yes" and then they signaled me to just move ahead.

This morning, the same unit flagged me down, same place. It's my route everyday as I pick up my daughter from her school, except Tuesday which is my "number coding" day, or day where all vehicles with plate numbers ending 3 and 4, are banned from the streets from 7am to 7pm. Again, I asked "why?". They said "smoke belching test", then I said "my daughter is sick, she needs to go home and rest." Then they allowed me again to proceed.

It is irritating to be flagged down knowing that they selectively chose your car because it is old. Here's a picture of Makati ASBU which flagged down an old vehicle with car plate starting with letter C, meaning it is registered in a province in Region 3 (Central Luzon). The ASBU were positioned in Buendia, now Sen. Gil Puyat ave, Makati.

The mere act of flagging down only older vehicles, delivery trucks and vans, public vehicles, but exempting government vehicles even if they are also old and obvious smoke belchers, or other private vehicles with some "code" that these are owned by some government personnel, makes the campaign a potential tool for extortion.

A delivery truck was also flagged down on that day. A friend who is a driver for a restaurant company told me that they have an allowance of P100 to give to thsoe anti-smoke belching personnel so they will allow him and his food delivery to proceed without further delay.

My diesel Service utility truck a 4 wheeler was flagged down. My driver called me thru cellphone that they were flagged down. I usually tell my driver to ask the ASBU technician to look at the exhaust pipe while my driver revs on the engine low to high rev, and (technician) see for himself if he still wants to test it since visually there is really very very minimal smoke or non at all and go thru the hassle or just go look for another motorist. It usually works in the Makati ASBU under the Magallanes interchange.

What bugs me is that the Pasig ASBU still wanted to test the vehicle, I told the technician thru cell, that the vehicle was just registered less than a month, and had smoke test exam, with flying colors just above 2 opacity, passing is 5 or 6 I think. The technician was presented with the official receipt, registration, and smoke exam, the technician told me "aanhin ko yan" i exam dapat ito. I told him hindi ba valid ang exam for 2 or 3 months kaka register lang nito. No exam pa din sabi niya. I said ok since I just changed oil,filters, exhaust cleaning, and a recent exam during registration is a little above 2 opacity, I agreed.

Bagsak daw ater the exam, 8.5, I said how can that be? Plates confiscated is the next thing that irritated me.

When the truck arrived at my garage, I asked my driver to rev the engine, there was really no amount of smoke that can fail a smoke test that is visually, anyway I asked my driver to clean the exhaust because that is all we can do since everything has been done less than 20 days ago.

The next day, to claim the plate an exam has to be performed again, test probe inserted, the reading was 9.5.

I was shocked at the news of my driver with the results tumaas pa ngayon!

the tech said ibalik mo na lang bukas yan.

During this exam my driver noticed that a lot of other drivers are on the side commenting wala kang pag asa dito, dapat may naka ipit na isang daan sa gas pedal para pumasa yan.

the next day my driver followed the advice, and the reading is 2 opacity, it passed. then paid the P1350 penalty plus exam, and we got the plate no. back.

The last exam was the real opacity of my vehicle. I had doubts about the Pasig City ASBU motives and apparatus, I was thinking of having a smoke test at the Makati City ASBU, but Pasig City won't accept the clearance from another test center .

From the 9 opacity to 2 opacity exam I didn't do anything even clean the exhaust because wala na akong magagawa the exhaust was really very clean just like before the flagdown.

My driver said they flagdown a lot of motorists, I wonder how corrupt is the Pasig ASBU? The machines they use to test seems adjustable to their calibration. They should be investigated and test machines checked!

I will try to compile more materials on this so-called "anti-smoke belching campaign" and the extortion practices as I personally experience this kind of harassment. I also clean my diesel pick-up's exhaust regularly, in case some hard-headed ASBU "public servants" will really test my vehicle someday.

So, consider this as "Part 1" of another discussion series in this blog.

45 comments:

i pity the drivers who get flagged down by ASBU people. i always see them everyday along C5 and Makati. I havent seen any Public Document posted about this ordinance and operating procedure to make it clear to the motorist how apprehension and testing should be done. There should be a clear regulation how to implement this and every ASBU unit should be required to show it. everytime they "test" your vehicle they rev it more than 3K rpm which will definitely smoke any engine old or new.

my driver was flagged down while driving a 2007 model pickup.the ASBU guys stepped on the pedal at more than 3K rpm which caused the engine to smoke. this cost us 1K and hours just to go there and claim the car plate. this is a stupid ordinance since they are not flagging down public vehicles which are very obvious smoke belchers, and who regularly ply the streets of a particular city. this practice should be stopped first and the public should be made aware how this is to be done properly.

I am a visitor from Calfornia to this country and was riding with my brother in law when we were flagged down by two men in a yellow shirts and demanded that our vehicle be check for emission. The car was registered in laguna and have been certified by LTO having passed the smog but thi sarrogant asshole insisted that they test the vehicle which we comply, but of course they have rigged the device in order for you not to pass, to make a long story short, they were asking a so called fee to resolve the problem, my brother in law being familiar with the government system hand out a 500 pesos to the guy, but we overheard the other lady telling the guy it needs to be 1000 or they will remove the plate from my brother in law car. This is the kind of system that really prevent me from visiting my beloved country, blood sucker like this are rampants and it leaves a bad image to the already very bad image of the country. i hope karma happens to these government employees, officials and the rest of them.

Today August 16, 2011, 1:30PM, I was flagged down along C-5 Kalayaan crossing by Makati ASBU. My vehicle failed the emmission test. I was given two choices, surrender my license or one of the plates to be "tubos" in Makati Central Fire Department, Ayala. Two very young guys approached me with the result of the emission test and the blank violation ticket. I said I need to fix my immigration to Canada requirements and I have deadline to meet. The eyes of the idiots rolled and saw money in my face!! ALFIE BINARAO came and asked me to discuss my OPTIONS off the car since my whole family was inside and they would hear the kotongan. BINARAO told me that it would be a great hassle to me if he would take my plate off or I would claim my license. Do I want to pay P1,300 with receipt from Central Fire Station or.... BINARAO wanted me to continue the line. Pwede na ba P300? "Sir, may result na kasi eh. Kami ng mga kasama ko ang mag aabono nyan... E kung sa gitna na lang po tayo" I said P500? "Opo, ok na yun", said BINARAO. Then off I went. Bata pa ang mga taong ito ang huhusay na mangotong. At ang gagaling ng strategy nila. They are a team of gangsters in uniform extorting money from motorists and depriving Makati City of Revenues. Sana lang hindi bingi si Mayor Binay.

Thank you for sharing your experiences and observations. ASBUs are mainly revenue-generating policies of city halls. If you will notice, the number of really smoke-belchers in Metro Manila is sooo few, usually they are public transpo vehicles like jeepneys, buses and tricycles. Or government vehicles themselves. The testing equipment of ASBU I think, is designed so that 99 percent of the vehicles to be tested there will fail. So it is an extortion racket for those who will give outright bribe, or a revenue-raising program by the city hall. Either way, ordinary motorists and taxpayers are harassed. And that's one of the many indicators that expanding government almost always result in expanding the wastes and robbery in society.

we also had this experience in roxas blvd. and yeah, they select old vehicles and its irritating specially when you see buses around which emits more smoke than your vehicle. and just a couple of weeks after we reclaim our plates back and pass the test, we were flagged down again, this time in c5. i really wish their modus will be stopped. kawawa ang mga tao. who knows, baka its a matter of life and death yung lakad ng tao kaya sya bumyahe tapos huhulihin lang ng mga yan.

Same thing happened to us, twice, the latest incident was yesterday..We were flagged down by ASBU people along Edsa Ayala. Like all of the people here, we failed the emission test that they conducted on our vehicle and it gave a result of 9.9, when our car really doesn't emit dark smoke and had just been tested a few months ago when it was registered. So we were being asked to pay 1000 pesos or have our plate number confiscated, we bargained and agreed on paying 500 instead, but the guy told us that the 500 we were paying was just for them to allow us to go and does not guarantee that we will not be flagged down again in the next days. He was encouraging us to buy a piece of paper which says "SMOKE EMISSION TEST PASSED" and it costs 300 pesos. According to him, this paper will be an assurance that we will not be flagged down again for the next 3 months but needs to be renewed after the 3 month validity period which means you will have to pay 300 pesos again. He kept on threatening us that we will be flagged down again and the 500 pesos which we gave him today will just come to waste if we did not buy the paper from him.. But we insisted that we did not have anymore money to give and so he said we can call him next time we decide on buying the paper and gave us his contact number. This person's name was ROBERTO LOPEZ from the MAKATI ASBU.

This is clearly an act of extortion.. Does anybody have an idea where we can report this matter as this claerly has to be stopped.

same thing happen to me.. good thing i have an audio recording though not conversation was cover.. I'm thinking of complaining to the office of makati since the person approach me have no identification card (ID).. and i have this feeling that his not an employee of that task force. they tried to ask for 1thousand as Kotong but i refuse.. Now im looking for a way to get back at them for the hassle they are giving me.

i was also flagged down by that ASBU people at Makati. hate those bastards. my van is an old kia and has this mazda engine which is newly overhauled, pipes cleaned, new oil, air filters and all... freak'n used full synthetic oil which is so expensive but its what must be used on my engine as per mazda b2200 users... had it tested and got 2.0 which is a passing grade below the 2.5 which i know is pasang-awa. pero nung tinest nila nagtaka ako bakit 2.8 lumabas. sa madaling salita sinabihan na ako what will happen and all. being me from qc and makati's too far from me and the freak'n cost of traveling back there and the penalty i managed to talk it thru and did the ipit thing and yun nakalusot rin sa ASBU. this is clearly harassment to old vehicles na kayang bilhin at maintain ng ordinarong tao at yung mga mayayaman na bago kotse at government vehicle na smoke belchers ok lang. lalo na yung service mismo ng ASBU na smoke belcher din!! akala nyo d ko alam yan ha!!

Kaya nga "it's mor fun in the Philippines" eh. It's really "FUNNY" in other words NAKAKAASAR! They make regulations as a tool to make money. Smoke belching tests upon registration are no longer performed honestly.You can now register your vehicle with out actual tests. LTO knows that, but they dont do anything about due to grease money.

Today March 17, 2012, I was flagged down along C-5 Kalayaan crossing by Makati ASBU. I also had an experience just a few hours ago. Even on a Saturday they are flagging down they stepped on the pedal so hard that it would have a failed a result. Then they will try to fix the situation by asking money or "lagay". They agreed on a 500 pesos bribe. As if totoo nga ung mga nababalitaan ko na walang pumapasa sa test Ng MGa ASBU because I just had my oil change two months ago. They are doing this for the "KOTONG or LAGAY"

Just want to give my comment on this, this smoke belching campaign, is somehow helpful lessen our air pollution in the metro and it is done in response to the clean air act, meaning were doing this to lessen and if possible eradicate air pollutants in the air, napansin ko lang na may mayayabang na kawani ng ASBU Kung humithit ng yosi sa kalsada kala mo tambucho rin ang bibig, sana Lang alalahanin din nila that they're after with the cleanliness of our air so ganun din sa Manila mismo dapat aware sila dun..kakairita minsan, Kung kaka ahi to sila ng sasakyan kala mo Kung sino,hay, just my 2 cents, I pray that, they will do their jod the way they should be....

Thanks for the sharing of experiences. I have actually written Part 3 of this subject dated November 25, 2011, http://funwithgovernment.blogspot.com/2011/11/anti-smoke-belching-racket-part-3.html.

The process made by ASBU is wrong. They are accusing some motorists of being smoke belchers with zero initial proof. The burden of proof should be on them, like having photo or video of a smoke-belching vehicle in one corner, then radio it to the next corner where the other ASBU are waiting and flag down that vehicle. The purpose of such harassment is extortion by ASBU guys, and additional revenue for the city hall for those who do not know how to bargain with the ASBU people.

Yes my husband was driving a Mitsubishi Pajero below the elevated C5 U turn when we were flagged down. I know I just had our car passed the recent emission test prior to registration and I was wondering why when its their tester making this scam computer print out that we failed. When we arrived home we tested our car and revved it up to 3k there was actually no visible smoke emitted. We felt robbed and fooled by this " government pretending smoke belching operation" To all those being flagged down make sure its really just up to 3k when they rev it, I think they will really make sure that you will fail...I think their tester machine is just programmed to give non passing score all the time.

yup this is definitely a racket I was stopped also awhile ago...it is a shame I'm from Makati and I myself is a victim of my own municipality...it's sad the a lot of automobiles like jeeps get away with it even though you see clearly the smoke coming from their mufflers...This is not an ordinance but a money making scheme ran by crooks....

Talagang deliberate ang pambiktima nila. Their respective city halls allow or tolerate this for two reasons: (1) it brings revenues to their respective city governments, and (2) it gives money via extortion, to their political supporters, the people on those ASBUs. Part of the natuure of governments as inherently abusive.